


see you again

by dogsbreath



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Barba comes back, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s22e04 Sightless in a Savage Land, Established Relationship, Hurt Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr., Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Episode: s19e13 The Undiscovered Country, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:02:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29774520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogsbreath/pseuds/dogsbreath
Summary: There’s a knock on his door. It’s loud, and it startled him back to reality. He doesn’t look through the peep hole. he should’ve.Rafael is standing there. He’s standing at Sonnys front door, and Sonny feels the air in his lungs freeze.“Barba.” He says. He doesn’t know why he feels trapped under his gaze.“Hey, Sonny.” Barba greets. “Can i come in?”
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 39





	see you again

The only reason he’d even gone to the squad room was because liv wasn’t answering his calls, and he needed to know what she wanted the warrant for; shockingly a hasty text from amanda demanding _get us some warrants, carisi_ wasn’t enough. 

He wasn’t even supposed to be there, not with all the work waiting for him back at the DA’s office. And maybe that’s what he’d been counting on. 

He’s three, four, five steps from the elevator when he hears his voice. six, seven, eight steps from the owner of the voice. He doesn’t even notice him, not at first, because he’s in Olivia’s office, and Sonnys frozen in the middle of the squad room, unable to look away from where he was standing. 

He turns, like he’d noticed sonny’s gaze. _he always noticed sonny’s gaze._ blue eyes meet green ones. green eyes sonny had spent years falling in love with. green eyes that belonged to Rafael Barba, someone Sonny hasn’t seen in three years. 

the entire world narrowed down to the two of them, the ambient chatter of the squad room turning to white noise. something in the way his eyes went from cheerful to guarded at the sight of him made sonnys stomach churn, made anger war with the happiness of his return and the white hot rush of abandonment he still feels. 

“Carisi.” Barba greets, almost hesitating, like he doesn’t know how Sonny will react. Sonny doesn’t know either. The world snaps back into focus, and he opens his mouth to speak, but closes it, almost afraid that all the unsent texts, the unspoken words between, all the looks and every feeling Sonny’s ever felt will come falling from his lips like a flood. part of sonny wants to say it all, wants to be rid of all of it. Wants to be able to breathe properly in the courtroom without having to force down memories of someone who left him without so much as a goodbye. 

So he settles for not answering at all. He turns to Olivia, wetting his bottom lip. “The warrants.” he says. “What did you need them for?” 

“Sonny,” Amanda whispers, laying a hand on his arm. Barbas eyes still haven’t left Sonny, and Sonny feels like he suffocating on emotions lodged in his throat, like it’ll kill him if he doesn’t get the hell out of there. 

“What did you need them for, lieutenant?” He asks again. 

Olivia takes a good look at him. He’s twitchy, has that _i need to leave_ aura about him, like it’s physically killing him to be in the squad room. Like it’s the most painful thing he’s ever endured, having to stand in the place he’d once felt the safest. She can’t blame him, because she remembers having to tell him about how Barba left. She remembers the sheer disbelief in his eyes, the emotion being drowned out by the grief she saw in his eyes, the same grief she sees starting to rise in his eyes now.

Sonny cant look at barba, physically turns to face Olivia completely. “The warrants?” he asks again, more demanding, more urgent, silently begging her to answer the question so he can get the fuck out of there. 

He’s cagey, ready to sprint. Wants to get as far away from this place as he can, wants as far away from these feelings that he thought he’d dealt with. he doesn’t seem to have, not with the way they were currently hellbent on choking him up, like a hand slowly tightening around his neck, ready to clog up his throat. 

He’s one, two, three minutes away from leaving. four, five, six seconds away from having a panic attack in the middle of the squad room. 

“The suspects phone records.” Olivia answers. He swallows, nodding. “I’ll get right on that.” 

He’s four, five, six steps closer to the elevator. seven, eight, nine steps farther away from the man he was in love with. 

_It had been just him and barba._

And then it had been just him. 

Standing alone in the elevator, safely behind the closed doors, sonny wonders what rafael would think if he knew that sometimes sonny still left the little messages on his notepad for him during court. 

_quietly, in the back of his mind, he wonders if rafael will stay this time._

* * * 

By the time he gets home, he’s actively ignoring the fact that Barba was back in town. or at least, he wants to. But it’s all he can think about. it’s been three years, and Barba looks really good. Like all the stress and guilt and pain were gone. Like he’d never worked with SVU in the first place. He works for the Innocence Project now and Sonny doesn’t know how he could do it, how he could stand in front of a jury and defend the type of people he used to put away. 

Sonny didn’t know how he could unhook that baby. All he knew was that he did it, and it took him reading his testimony to understand. Barba was not a very emotional person, not on the outside, but he bared more in that courtroom than he had to anyone in private. even sonny. 

Sonny used to think Barba came alive in the courtroom, that he needed it to function. But that’s not true, not really. Barba comes alive when he’s doing what’s right. That’s why he chose to work with the Innocence Project, sonny knows. 

Barba was not a very black and white person. He saw everything in gray, but not like Sonny, who always saw everything in shades of gray, saw hundreds of shades, even when he didn’t want to. He used to wish he could see things in black and white like some cops do, that law school didn’t make him the type of cop that understood criminals. But now, Sonny thinks it’s makes him a better cop, _a better lawyer,_ to be able to see like that. 

There’s a knock on his door. It’s loud, and it startled him back to reality. He doesn’t look through the peep hole. he should’ve. 

Rafael is standing there. He’s standing at Sonnys front door, and Sonny feels the air in his lungs freeze. 

“Barba.” He says. He doesn’t know why he feels trapped under his gaze. 

“Hey, Sonny.” Barba greets. “Can i come in?” 

Sonny should say no. Sonny should not let Rafael Barba in. But he does anyway, because Sonny wants to know if he was imagining everything. If all those looks, those touches, those words, if it was all in his head, or if any of it was real. 

No one had ever made Sonny feel like Rafael makes him feel. 

No one had ever left Sonny like Rafael did. 

For the longest time, he wanted to hate him. Not because of what he did, no, he wanted to hate him because he left him. Because he didn’t say goodbye. Because Sonny had to find out from Olivia that Barba left. 

He shuts the door. Rafael is one, two, three steps into Sonnys home, and Sonny is four, five, six seconds away from saying everything he’d ever wanted to the man. 

He shuts his eyes, taking a deep breath. He opens his mouth to speak, but he can’t form the words he needs to, and doesn’t know how he can speak without everything spilling out and tainting everything like an oil spill. 

_did you really like me or was it just a game? did you ever really mean anything you said? why didn’t you say goodbye?_

He manages to land on “Why are you here, Barba?”

“Is it wrong that I wanted to see you?” 

Sonny leans against the door, looking at him. He crosses his arms, eyeing him. Barba’s standing a little awkwardly in the middle of Sonny’s apartment. Which seems wrong, because Barba was never awkward. he was always sure of himself, always confident. He always knew where he belonged, and what to do. Unlike Sonny, who jumped from precinct to precinct, team to team, before he barely managed to make a home in Manhattan SVU. 

“You saw me at the precinct.” he states. 

“And you ran out of there like it physically hurt you to stand in my vicinity.” 

_it did,_ he almost says. He wonders what Barba would say. Barba must read something on his face, because the man sighs and takes a step closer to Sonny. 

“Look, Carisi, what i did to that child... it don’t—“

“You don’t have to explain.” Sonny interrupts, shaking his head. 

“What?” 

“Your reasons. For doing what you did. I read the testimony, read what you told the jury. I understand why you did it.” 

Barba looks at him, at a loss for words. Like he doesn’t understand why Sonny was so upset. “If you understand... then why can’t you look me in the eye, Carisi?” 

The words cause a damn to break, cause Sonny to look at him in disbelief. The words, the fact that Barba couldn’t think of any reason as for why he’d be mad, made everything swell, made Sonny tidal wave of emotions crash onto the shores of his mind hard and fast. Sonny feels irrationally angry. 

“What do you want me to say, Barba?” 

“I want you to tell me what’s making you so upset!” 

Sonny stays quiet, suddenly unable to say the things that had threatened to spill out of him. 

“Is it about the child?” Barba asks. “I know you better than you think i do, Sonny. Something about this is hurting you—“

“It’s not about the baby, Rafael!” 

“Then _what_ is it?! Just because you understand doesn’t mean you’re not—“

“You left!” Sonny shouted. “You left, and you didn’t tell me. Didn’t think i worthy of a goodbye. I mean, after everything we’ve been through, don’t you think that’s a little fucked up?”

“You strung me along just so you could what? leave?” 

“I didn’t string you along—“

“Oh really?? because that’s sure as hell what it feels like.” 

“I thought we had something... something really really good.” Sonny murmurs after a beat of silence. 

“We do.” Rafael whispered. 

Sonny shut his eyes, shaking his head. Part of him hurts, in a way it hasn’t since rafael first left. “Then...” he lets out a dry laugh, “Then why didn’t you tell me anything?” 

“I..” Barba cant seem to get any farther, and Sonny takes a deep breath. 

“I was afraid.” He says, blinking. Sonny sees tears in his eyes. Barba’s never cried in front of him but he looks damn close to it now. “I was afraid that you’d see me as a monster. That you’d be angry. That you’d hate me. And I... I can handle a lot of things, Sonny. But not that.” 

“I never saw you as a monster. I never could.” Sonny whispers.

“I killed that child, Sonny.” 

“you were trying to do the right thing, Rafael.” 

“Did i? How could you _not_ see me as a monster?” 

Sonny sees a tear fall down Rafael’s face. Sonny steps forward, closing the space between them. He hesitantly reaches a hand up to him, wiping away the tear. “Because I love you.” 

“I’ve loved you for years. And.. I thought—“

He’s cut off by Rafael pulling him down and kissing him. A hand lands on the back of his neck, and Sonnys hands come up to cradle Rafael’s face. 

Sonny pulls away, resting his head against Rafaels. He lets out a laugh, small and breathy, thumbs running across his cheekbones. He doesn’t want to open his eyes, because maybe if he does, he’ll find out he fell asleep on the couch, and that his mind was playing him. That he’s having that dream again. the one where Rafael comes back and sonny gets his answers. gets an explanation as to why... why he left, why he didn’t call. 

“Sonny,” Rafael calls softly. Sonny swallows, wrapping his arms around him. One of his hands tangle in his hair, and Sonny rests his chin against his temple, taking a shaky breath. 

“Open your eyes, _Mi Amor.”_ Rafael murmurs. 

“Want to be sure,” Sonny whispers, shaking his head. “Want to be sure that this time it’s real.” 

“It’s real.” he murmurs, turning to press a kiss to Sonny’s chin. “I’m not leaving again.” 

Sonny opens his eyes, and Rafael pulls away. Sonny flattens his hand onto the side of his face, looking at him. Trying to see if he could memorize all the new changes in him. Not that he had anything really new to memorize, the only thing different was his beard. He still had the laugh lines that’s sonny liked to trace in the nighttime, still had the deep green eyes that Sonny could spend hours in. A colour he would paint his whole world if given the chance. 

“Stay,” Sonny whispers, his thumb brushing the side of his face. “You can move in here, and we can have our second chance.” 

“Okay.” Rafael nods. Sonny squints and Rafael laughs. “I’d already moved back. Kept my old apartment, figured it could come in handy.” 

He reached up and kissed Sonny again, hands curling into the mans dress shirt. He smiles, pulling away and brushing his nose against Sonnys. 

“But I guess I don’t need it anymore.”


End file.
